Constable country falls prey to health and safety police

By Charles Clover, Environment Editor

12:01AM GMT 06 Nov 2006

The Environment Agency has stopped operating mill flood gates on the river made famous by the artist John Constable because it says the structures do not comply with modern health and safety standards.

The ban applies to 18 cast iron mill sluices on the Stour, Colne and Blackwater in Essex and Suffolk and some of their tributaries.

Conservationists say that not operating the sluices has emptied 18 miles of the Stour, with implications for wildlife habitat, fishing and the control of watermeadows where the water levels have been managed for at least 1,000 years.

They are furious with the decision, which the Environment Agency says it made after an extensive review, and partly because one of its staff injured his arm badly on a flood gate four years ago.

Residents want the agency to resume opening the flood gates. They say their closure could lead to avoidable flooding, though the agency argues that computer models demonstrate that this is not the case.

Adrian Walters, of the Sudbury Common Lands Charity, which manages 210 acres of river bank on either side of the Stour in Sudbury, said: "I don't understand how this decision came about.

"The accident that provoked it was four years ago and was possibly the result of correct procedures not being followed.

''What we require is a resumption of the flood gates being operated. Nothing else will do."

Mr Walters said the agency's decision initially to leave one of the flood gates open had a drastic impact on wildlife in the nature reserve managed by the charity. The reserve has dykes and ponds fed from the river, where there are rare plants, such as tubular water dropwort, which is included on the Red List of endangered species.

"The whole ecosystem was compromised when the water dropped away," Mr Walters said.

''There were snails left high and dry and sticklebacks in small pools, some dead and others dying."

Since then the charity has managed to persuade the agency to close the Sudbury sluice on a one-off basis, but further upstream and elsewhere mill sluices have been deliberately left open. Fishing clubs have been forced to hold fixtures elsewhere because of lack of water.

Mr Walters said: "It is changing the whole nature of the river. These rivers have been managed for 1,000 years.

They need flow management for wildlife and the maintenance of the landscape. Once it starts to rain there will be inundation of the watermeadows. If that happens in May, at a time when there should be grazing, that is going to affect the pasture.

''The agency is compromising what it is supposed to deliver. We seem to be living in a society where we are able to do less and less — for unjustifiable reasons."

Mr Walters added that he was unconvinced by the agency's pronouncement that leaving the gates unused would not cause flooding. "I have no faith in computer models. The weather takes no notice of them. If we get extreme weather conditions, flooding happens and we are going to see more of it."

Michael Clover, a joint owner until 1985 of the mill at Dedham, once owned by John Constable's father, said that before the agency took over he used to wind up the flood gates himself, often in the middle of the night, with a torch and in all weathers.

"I wouldn't say it was unsafe; there is a concrete bridge, the mechanism is all enclosed," he said. "The agency nowadays has a motor for lifting it up and down automatically. The roar of water beneath you can be very daunting for sensitive souls, but it is perfectly safe."

The agency initially agreed to show The Daily Telegraph the mechanism of the iron sluices and to demonstrate what was unsafe about them, but when our photographer went to Sudbury with a member of the agency's staff he would not open up bars guarding the mill sluices or consent to be photographed in front of them.

Charles Beardall, the agency's area manager, said: "Our health and safety advice is not to operate these structures. It is not a comfortable position for us to be in.

"This isn't health and safety gone mad. Every industry has to answer to health and safety, and as a responsible employer we have to protect our staff."

Dr Beardall said there were 18 sluices of which four — at Layham, Brundon, Alderford and Budford — needed to be operated because of the risk of flooding to properties. These have been left open.

He added: "On the Colne and Blackwater, modelling has shown that the operation of mill gates has no effect on flooding. Quite clearly if there is a very, very significant storm, properties may get flooded. But the operation of the mill sluices won't have had an impact at all."

The agency was looking at a range of options including automating the sluices that have been pronounced unsafe but this was a "vast investment" which would be difficult to justify.